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goneawayworld2020-12-01 08:29 pm
piper90npcs) wrote in goneawayworld2020-12-01 08:29 pm
HERE, HAVE SOME SPIRIT
Who: Three Ghosts and the little New Hires
What: Sharing the Christmas Spirit
Where: Good question
When: Post-Rose Tattoo
Warnings/Notes: Possible violence, angst, likely visions of death.
Are you sleeping?
Maybe. Maybe not. It's hard to tell. This could be another ARE, after all. What you can tell is that the halls are filled with mist, the smell of pine, and the sound of jingling bells off in the distance.
And then comes the wailing.
Tearing past you, screaming like a damned soul, skeletal figures flood through the halls. Some of them wear business suits, weighed down by chains crafted from ledgers and money boxes. Some of them are soldiers, bound by their own twisted weapons. Police, politicians, no one seems spared. Someone whispers, warning you, begging you to pay heed. For you will be visited by three ghosts who are on an errand of great import.
And then something charges with a howl and all goes white. Slowly, the light dims, and the mass of spectral entities is gone. Instead there stands a figure, or maybe two or three of them. For each person, it's different, as they'll have different messages and purposes for each.
One is neither male nor female, the only certain features being a well-muscled, well proportioned body, wearing a white tunic and a beautiful belt of pearl. Its hair is long, white, as if ancient, but no matter how its face changes, there's no sign of age upon it. There seems to be an aura of white flame around its head and, in a voice that belies nothing but charitable warmth, introduces itself as the Ghost of Christmas Past. It will show scenes of someone's past, offering enlightening details with little judgment.
The middle one is a large man on a veritable throne of food, tantalizing and delicious, wearing a fur-lined red robe and a crown of holly upon his head. The Ghost of Christmas Present is a big man, with brown hair, and a booming, jovial voice that can turn blisteringly harsh and back in a single sentence. He'll show what the character was doing immediately prior to their arrival upon the rig. Perhaps what they're doing right now. But he'll also be content to walk either the character's home world or this Gone Away World, viewing the sights and people enjoying Christmas with the character.
And the final one, a phantom in a dark, green robe, green smoke billowing around it. Its skin is pale, pulled gauntly around whatever body part it exposes. The gaze underneath the hood is as cold as the grave, and it would be wise not to try to match that for too long. It remains utterly silent, simply guiding its guest through the Christmases Yet To Come with a pointed finger. It will show how a character dies and how they'll be remembered by others after. It acts cold and merciless, but this very visit is a mission of mercy, one it silently prays will succeed.
The surprise, though, is that they aren't showing the character that history. Instead, they'll be guiding their guest through someone else's life. Maybe just a fraction of it, maybe a full span. But when it's all over, it's as if no time has passed. In fact, no. The characters are returned to an hour before the ghosts visited them.
[[Remember, this isn't your typical memshare. The ghosts are NPCs, but they'll be controlled by the players. They will not show characters their own histories, presents, or futures, only those of different people. They can show the same scenes to different people or different scenes to different people. One person might not even see all three of the Ghosts.]]
What: Sharing the Christmas Spirit
Where: Good question
When: Post-Rose Tattoo
Warnings/Notes: Possible violence, angst, likely visions of death.
Are you sleeping?
Maybe. Maybe not. It's hard to tell. This could be another ARE, after all. What you can tell is that the halls are filled with mist, the smell of pine, and the sound of jingling bells off in the distance.
And then comes the wailing.
Tearing past you, screaming like a damned soul, skeletal figures flood through the halls. Some of them wear business suits, weighed down by chains crafted from ledgers and money boxes. Some of them are soldiers, bound by their own twisted weapons. Police, politicians, no one seems spared. Someone whispers, warning you, begging you to pay heed. For you will be visited by three ghosts who are on an errand of great import.
And then something charges with a howl and all goes white. Slowly, the light dims, and the mass of spectral entities is gone. Instead there stands a figure, or maybe two or three of them. For each person, it's different, as they'll have different messages and purposes for each.
One is neither male nor female, the only certain features being a well-muscled, well proportioned body, wearing a white tunic and a beautiful belt of pearl. Its hair is long, white, as if ancient, but no matter how its face changes, there's no sign of age upon it. There seems to be an aura of white flame around its head and, in a voice that belies nothing but charitable warmth, introduces itself as the Ghost of Christmas Past. It will show scenes of someone's past, offering enlightening details with little judgment.
The middle one is a large man on a veritable throne of food, tantalizing and delicious, wearing a fur-lined red robe and a crown of holly upon his head. The Ghost of Christmas Present is a big man, with brown hair, and a booming, jovial voice that can turn blisteringly harsh and back in a single sentence. He'll show what the character was doing immediately prior to their arrival upon the rig. Perhaps what they're doing right now. But he'll also be content to walk either the character's home world or this Gone Away World, viewing the sights and people enjoying Christmas with the character.
And the final one, a phantom in a dark, green robe, green smoke billowing around it. Its skin is pale, pulled gauntly around whatever body part it exposes. The gaze underneath the hood is as cold as the grave, and it would be wise not to try to match that for too long. It remains utterly silent, simply guiding its guest through the Christmases Yet To Come with a pointed finger. It will show how a character dies and how they'll be remembered by others after. It acts cold and merciless, but this very visit is a mission of mercy, one it silently prays will succeed.
The surprise, though, is that they aren't showing the character that history. Instead, they'll be guiding their guest through someone else's life. Maybe just a fraction of it, maybe a full span. But when it's all over, it's as if no time has passed. In fact, no. The characters are returned to an hour before the ghosts visited them.
[[Remember, this isn't your typical memshare. The ghosts are NPCs, but they'll be controlled by the players. They will not show characters their own histories, presents, or futures, only those of different people. They can show the same scenes to different people or different scenes to different people. One person might not even see all three of the Ghosts.]]
no subject
When her movie hits a commercial break, she gets up and unceremoniously shoves at Dan's shoulder. "Vas a dormir todo el día?"
Dan groans and clearly struggles for the right words. "Me estoy levantando...is that how to say it?"
"I'll tell you if you get up. You missed Christmas morning. It's almost two." She prods him again. "Okay, fine, yes, you said it right. Spoilers."
Dan sits up and runs his hands up and down his face while Eliora rummages through the duffel bag sitting at the base of her bed, overflowing with her clothes a plastic baggie with a toothbrush and dental floss.
"I already opened what you got me. You slept through it," Eliora says, bringing a small, shabbily-wrapped package over to him. "I love it, by the way. I'll read it to you if you want."
"You weren't supposed to open it without me." Dan sits back against the headrest and takes her gift to him in hand.
"You slept late. I was bored." Eliora shrugs. "I only get one present a year, I decide when to open it."
"Fair enough." Dan unfolds the wrapping paper of his gift gently, tearing tape but not paper, to reveal a Polaroid camera. He examines it gently, moving his fingers over the buttons and twist-knobs without setting anything off, popping over the film canister to see that Eliora already filled it, closing it back up again.
"Take one of me," Eliora says impatiently. "You like it, right? They don't even make these cameras anymore, I had to go through The Ancient One to get it."
"I love it, El. This is....okay, whichever pose you like, but make it a good one. You're the first thing this camera'll see." Dan swings his legs over the edge of the bed and stands up while Eliora strikes a sassy pose, then a sweet one, then a goofy one, then she wraps her arms around Dan's waist as those three photos start to emerge from their white borders.
"You have to do a selfie, too."
"I ain't even showered yet, Ellie." He hugs her to his side. "Let's get a selfie after I at least brush my teeth."
The Ghost politely doesn't share that, in a fit of grief, Dan ended up burning those Polaroids a few weeks after Eliora died.]
no subject
Dan may have always been having trouble with his own heart since the trauma life dealt him, and it's clear in him fully clothed on a fully made bed and sleeping past 2, but watching him still try for Ellie, miss some marks but hit others, is moving. Bunny watches with the ghost in approval.]
He's doing a good job with her, all things considered. Can't be easy, with a kid that eternal, under circumstances that rough. Even though she's sweet as pie, obviously.
[Dan has so much more on his plate than mortals generally do. What a valiant effort.]
no subject
[In the memory, Dan asks Ellie if she's eaten anything, and after she's affirmatively answered that she got room service but that was a few hours ago, he gives her a takeout menu to peruse and goes to shower and have his first cigarette of the day. When he returns, she's decided what Chinese food banquet they're having for Christmas dinner, and he calls it in.
"I think the first chapter of the book you got me is the best one," she says, flicking off the TV.
"You already read the whole thing? That was supposed to last you."
"No, just the first chapter so far." She grins. "But it's really good."
"Well, alright then, let's hear it." He sits at the end of the bed, not even having to suggest to her a practice that they've clearly done a thousand times, and she goes and sits on the floor between his knees with the thick book - Essential Short Stories of American Horror - in her lap. He undoes her rumpled, slept-in braid, gently combing it out and then reassembling it in the same threaded style he did Tab's way back in the first memory of his Bunny ever saw.
While he does, Eliora reads, smiling. "The Tell-Tale Heart, by Edgar Allen Poe..."]
These are some of her happiest years so far, even though that might be as much because her life was hard before she met him as as good a job he's doing.
no subject
[But his heart is still warmed, the way Dan and his adopted daughter have such a rhythm, a routine of care and attentiveness to each other in less than ideal circumstances. The way they have carved out moments of love and peace for themselves is a privilege to witness.]
They always do this, given enough time, the right company. Mortals, I mean. They've got so little time to do all their grieving and all their loving in so they pack it in so well.
[He says it admiringly.]
no subject
[In the memory, Dan gets that selfie with Eliora, showing off her fresh braid with him squeezing her to his side, her new book clutched tight to her chest. She goes through the photos and dates them with a marker. Navidad 2017, New Salem ND. He slides them into a paper baggie and tucks them safely into the inside pocket of his jacket, where they won't be forgotten.
The Ghost smiles, and somehow the room seems warmer.] Yes. You understand that too. They often don't, when they're in the middle of it. They see themselves as having more time than they do, and they always have more love than they think. I showed you this because your friend here may need to remember that someday, and another immortal seemed the right person to retain the message for later.
[Dan and Eliora split their takeout food between themselves and sit in front of the TV, watching The Nightmare Before Christmas after Ellie shoots down Dan's suggestion of A Christmas Story, Dan drinking and eating his orange chicken and peaceful and Ellie silently mouthing the lines to a movie she clearly knows by heart. Outside, it's gone dark, and snowflakes appear and vanish in the halos of streetlamps.]
no subject
[He asks it like he's gathering data to solve a problem. Which he might be. Anyway the ghost's explanation tracks to him. Dan seems like a very lovable person, but possibly also like the sort of person who doesn't have room in loving everyone else to acknowledge how much they're loved in return.]
Got it. I'll see what I can do.
no subject
[Time's slipped a little, because it's several hours and at least a few movies later when Bunny sees Dan and Eliora again. Dan's coming back in from another cigarette, cheeks flush with the cold, snowflakes in his hair, rubbing his hands together to warm them. "You brush your teeth?"
"Uh huh." Ellie nods innocently, finishing the next story in her book. Dan raises an eyebrow.
"El, brush your teeth. We don't know how many days before we get running water again."
When Eliora's doing so, albeit sulkily, Dan sneaks a few chocolates from her unfinished advent calendar. He checks the locks on the door, the windows, then smears some sort of oil along the doorframe before hopping onto his bed and channel-surfing and nursing a bottle of peppermint schnapps. Eliora emerges again.
"Please don't watch poker all night. It's so boring. Put a documentary on or something. Something that doesn't suck." She crawls onto her bed and slides under the covers, taking her book with her. Dan obediently flips to some documentary about the Amazon, a soothing narrator describing howler monkeys over footage of them swinging around. "And don't switch it back to poker just because you think I'm sleeping."
"Scout's honor. I'm invested in these monkeys." Dan grins and waves a hand at the TV, then gets up off the bed to tuck Eliora in. She's too old to need it, but it doesn't matter. She scooches into her bed and he kisses her forehead - the same as Bunny saw Dan's mother do to him so many Christmases ago - and he folds and pushes her blankets until she's fully comfortable and ready to sleep. He pauses for a moment, clearly thinking. "Buenas noches, feliz navidad.. Ah...tenemos un largo viaje en la mañana."
She grins. "Your accent's getting really good."
"Gracias, señorita...uh...tengo la maestra mejor en todo el mundo."
Her grin turns to giggles, and he turns out the light, until the motel room is lit up only by the TV's glow of some beautiful tree frogs, luminous in how dangerous they are.]
no subject
All the more reason to work harder against Jorgmund, get Dan back with his kid where he belongs faster.]